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Review: A Cold Legacy (The Madman's Daughter #3) by Megan Shepherd

Blurb: After killing the men who tried to steal her father's research, Juliet—along with Montgomery, Lucy, Balthazar, and a deathly ill Edward—has escaped to a remote estate on the Scottish moors. Owned by the enigmatic Elizabeth von Stein, the mansion is full of mysteries and unexplained oddities: dead bodies in the basement, secret passages, and fortunetellers who seem to know Juliet's secrets. Though it appears to be a safe haven, Juliet fears new dangers may be present within the manor's own walls.

Then she uncovers the truth about the manor's long history of scientific experimentation—and her own intended role in it—forcing her to determine where the line falls between right and wrong, life and death, magic and science, and promises and secrets. And she must decide if she'll follow her father's dark footsteps of her mother's tragic ones, or whether she'll make her own.

Genre(s): Young Adult / Historical / Science Fiction / Romance

*This review contains spoilers*Review: I was incredibly excited to read this novel. After I had virtually devoured the first two, I could hardly wait, I started this third and last installment almost immediately after finishing the second. Unfortunately for me I needn't have bothered because this book was a complete and utter disappointment. *insert frown face here*

Actually about a little over halfway through this novel I was fairly pleased. I had some complaints. There were problems. But I was sure they would be fixed. After all, the author who wrote two amazing suspenseful, mysterious books wouldn't suddenly forget how to write a mysterious sci-fi romance, right? Wrong.

Let me tell you that last third of this book was some of weirdest and worst character deviation, pathetic plot, not mystery, that I have ever read. And it was made only worse by the fact that up till then things had been so good. My expectations were high. This wasn't like reading a semi okay book and then being surprised when it got worse. This beautiful, intelligent, romantic, sci-fi series ended with horrific train wreck of a book.

The first major nonsense is the reveal that Ajax is alive. I know, its weird. Remember how he ran away from Dr. Moreua and the other island creatures. Remember how he stopped taking treatments because he wanted to regress back into an animal. Apparently he changed his mind and Montgomery found a tiger that had just killed the doctor and decided he needed his help, oh, and then he decided not to tell his fiance about it. Don't worry too much, Ajax isn't here to actually do anything. He just quickly filled in for the role of creep fortune teller, who Juliet doesn't recognize because the plot demands—oh, I mean because she had never seen him as a full human. The stupidity is never ending here folks. Nevertheless the author brings him back for no good reason.

Despite setting up a romance between Juliet and Edward, the author apparently decided that in this novel they suddenly have no feelings for each other. Yep, the two characters who had sex, and shared an apartment and spent most of the previous novel together now have no interest in each other. Instead Montgomery (who has lied to Juliet more times than I can recall), and Juliet end up together. While Edward is randomly and abruptly head over heels in love with Lucy. And I have no bleepin' idea why. Lucy, who is extremely annoying and doesn't really do anything but create more problems for our heroes. A seriously horrible ending to a fascinating love triangle.

And then Lucy dies, but we cant bring her back to life because that would be unethical...even though they just brought Edward back to life at the beginning of this book. Confused, yet? Yeah, me too. The inconsistency in this book bothered me so much. A number of other characters also die in truly stupid circumstances.

Ultimately this book reads as if the author simply ran out of ideas. In comparison to the two previous novels which were packed full of mystery, tension, romance, adventure and surprises, this novel was boring, predictable and disappointing. Juliet, the intelligent, kind and endearing lead from before has become stupid and indecisive. The ending was blah, contrary to what was set up everything ends up different, in a bad way.